


It Could Have Been Worse

by amymagnolia



Category: Allegiant alternate ending - Fandom, Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 21:30:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 13,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1663130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amymagnolia/pseuds/amymagnolia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story is my way of dealing with my intense dislike for the ending of Allegiant.  If you haven't read it yet and don't want  it spoiled, please save this to read later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Weapons Lab

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever attempt at fiction, inspired by my disappointment in the ending of Allegiant. I used some of Veronica Roth's words, trying to make it meld believably with the rest of the book. Many thanks to her for creating this captivating world and the characters who populate it.
> 
> In my alternate ending, Tris doesn't die in the weapons lab; she and Tobias have a chance for a future.  
> This story begins after the end of Chapter 49 of Allegiant.

**TRIS**

“How did you inoculate yourself against the death serum?” he asks me. He’s still sitting in his wheelchair, but you don’t need to be able to walk to fire a gun.

I blink at him, still dazed.

“I didn’t,” I say.

“Don’t be stupid,” David says. “You can’t survive the death serum without an inoculation, and I’m the only person in the compound who possesses that substance.”

I just stare at him, not sure what to say. I didn’t inoculate myself. The fact that I’m still standing upright is impossible. There’s nothing more to add.

“I suppose it no longer matters,” he says. “We’re here now.”

“What are you doing here?” I mumble. My lips feel awkwardly large, hard to talk around. I still feel that oily heaviness on my skin, like death is clinging to me even though I have defeated it.

 

I am dimly aware that I left my own gun in the hallway behind me, sure I wouldn't need it if I made it this far. I am unarmed yet again. With no weapon, I am thankful for the first time for the brutal fight training Eric put us through in Phase One of initiation. I will have to be smart and act quickly when I have the opportunity if I'm going to win. And I have to win.

 

“I knew something was going on,” David says. “You’ve been running around with genetically damaged people all week, Tris. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”  He shakes his head. “And then your friend Cara was caught trying to manipulate the lights, but she very wisely knocked herself out before she could tell us anything. So I came here, just in case. I'm sad to say I'm not surprised to see you.”

“You came here alone?” I say. “Not very smart, are you?"

 

I must do this. For my mother. My father. For Will and Tori and Lynn and all the friends I've lost because of him. I will do this.

 

His bright eyes squint a little. “Well, you see, I have death serum resistance and a weapon, and you have no way to fight me. There’s no way you can steal four virus devices while I have you at gunpoint. I’m afraid you’ve come all this way for no reason, and it will be at the expense of your life. The death serum may not have killed you, but I am going to. I’m sure you understand -- officially we don’t allow capital punishment, but I can’t have you surviving this.”

He thinks I’m here to steal the weapons that will reset the experiments, not deploy one of them. Of course he does.

I try to guard my expression, though I’m sure it’s still slack. I sweep my eyes across the room, searching for the device that will release the memory serum virus. I was there when Matthew described it to Caleb in painstaking detail earlier: a black box with a silver keypad, marked with a strip of blue tape with a model number written on it. It is one of the only items on the counter along the left wall. But I can't move, or else he'll kill me.

I'll have to wait for the right moment, and do it fast. “I know what you did,” I say. I step sideways, hoping that the accusation will distract him. “I know you designed the attack simulation. I know you’re responsible for my parents’ deaths -- for my mother’s death. I know.”

“I am not responsible for her death!” David says, the words bursting from him, too loud and too sudden. “I told her what was coming just before the attack began, so she had enough time to escort her loved ones to a safe house. If she had stayed put, she would have lived. But she was a foolish woman who didn’t understand making sacrifices for the greater good, and it killed her!”

I frown at him. There’s something about his reaction -- about the glassiness of his eyes -- something that he mumbled when Nita shot him with the fear serum -- something about her.

       “Did you love her?” I say. “All those years she was sending you correspondence… the reason you never wanted her to stay there… the reason you told her you couldn’t read her updates anymore, after she married my father…”

David sits still, like a statue, like a man of stone.

“I did,” he says. “But that time is past.”

That must be why he welcomed me into his circle of trust, why he gave me so many opportunities. Because I am a piece of her, wearing her hair and speaking with her voice. Because he has spent his life grasping at her and coming up with nothing.

I hear footsteps in the hallway outside. The soldiers are coming. Good -- I need them to. I need them to be exposed to the airborne serum, to pass it along to the rest of the compound. I hope they wait until the air is clear of death serum.

“My mother wasn’t a fool,” I say. “She just understood something you didn’t. That it’s not sacrifice if it’s someone else’s life you’re giving away, it’s just evil.”

I take another step and say, “She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love, not misplaced disgust for another person’s genetics. That it should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That it should be done for people who need your strength because they don’t have enough of their own. That’s why I need to stop you from ‘sacrificing’ all those people and their memories. Why I need to rid the world of you once and for all.”

I shake my head.

“I didn’t come here to steal anything, David.”

At the same moment that I say his name I lunge at him, throwing my shoulder against his, tipping his wheelchair. The gun goes off and pain races through my body. I don't even know where the bullet hit me. David's useless legs wheel through the air. His body lands with a thud while the chair clatters to the floor on its side. His gun flies free from his hand and discharges again as it hits the tile floor, then skids beyond my reach and his. David howls. Through a red haze of pain, I hurl myself on top of him, struggling to balance on his flabby, writhing body. Blood - it must be mine - smears on us both, making my arms slippery. I twist free from the grasping claws that are his hands. David fights with desperation rather than skill. He is more suited for manipulating other people's lives from a distance. I bring my elbow down hard into his cheekbone and he recoils, stunned. Grimly, I slam his head to the floor. He doesn't move anymore. Blood trickles for his right nostril, his smashed lip...and his chest. His chest? It doesn't matter. Only the black box matters.

My left leg will not bear my weight so I crawl the short distance to the counter and drag myself up with my uninjured arm.

I can still hear Caleb repeating the code for Matthew. With a quaking hand I type in the numbers on the keypad.

The gun goes off again. How is that possible?

More pain, and black edges my vision, but I hear Caleb's voice speaking again. The green button.

So much pain.

But how when my body feels so numb?

A strange coldness seeps through my limbs.

I start to fall and slam my hand onto the keypad on my way down. A light turns on behind the green button. I hear a beep, and a churning sound.

I slide to the floor. I feel something warm on my neck, and under my cheek.

Red. Blood is a strange color. Dark.

From the corner of my eye, I see David slumped on the floor, a smear of blood tracing the path where he dragged himself to his gun. He is absolutely still.

 

There has been so much death. I thought I wanted to die then found that I fervently wanted to live. But this was important, it had to be done, and now it has been.

 

I feel a thread tugging me again, but this time I can't resist. The flame inside dims. It is just a faintly glowing ember. I'm sorry, Tobias. I'm sorry.

 

Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here?

I want to be.

I can.

I believe it.

 

 


	2. Peace and Bad News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> almost exactly like it was in the book, though a good bit shorter

** TOBIAS **

Finally we are in the truck returning to the compound, having inoculated Christina's family and collected Zeke and Hana. Zeke hasn't spoken to me, or even looked at me, since I told them about Uriah. Peter stares blankly around him; a dose of memory serum has washed him clean of his sins. At least I convinced Evelyn to forge a tentative agreement with Johanna about the formation of a new government. There is a fragile peace in the city, for now, which Marcus had no part in creating. My grief for Uriah and his family's suffering form a cold knot in my stomach. 

I have always hated the emptiness that winter brings, the blanket landscape and the stark

difference between sky and ground, the way it transforms trees into skeletons and the city into a wasteland.

Maybe this winter I can be persuaded otherwise. 

       We drive past the fences and stop by the front doors, which are no longer manned by guards. We get out, and Zeke seizes his mother’s hand to steady her as she shuffles through the snow. As we walk into the compound, I know for a fact that Caleb succeeded, because there is no one in sight. That can only mean that they have been reset, their memories forever altered.

       “Where is everyone?” Amar says.

       We walk through the abandoned security checkpoint without stopping. On the other side, I see Cara. The side of her face is badly bruised, and there’s a bandage on her head. But that’s not what concerns me. What concerns me is the troubled look on her face.

       “What is it?” I say.

       Cara shakes her head.

       “Where’s Tris?” I say.

       “I’m sorry, Tobias.”

       “Sorry about what?” Christina says roughly. “Tell us what happened!”

       “Tris went into the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb,” Cara says. “She survived the death serum, and set off the memory serum, but she was shot,” she swallows hard, “in the head. She’s alive… but hasn’t regained consciousness. I’m so sorry.”

          

Most of the time I can tell when people are lying, and this must be a lie, because Tris is fine. Her eyes bright and cheeks flushed and her small body full of power and strength, standing in a shaft of light in the atrium. Tris is fine, she wouldn’t leave me here alone, and she wouldn’t go into the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb.

       I take off running to the hospital wing where she lies fighting for her life.

       As I’m running I realize: of course Tris would go to the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb.

       Of course she would.

       Christina yells after me, but to me her voice sounds muffled, like I have submerged my head underwater. The details of the halls are difficult to see, the world smearing together into dull colors.

       When I reach her room, I can’t go in. All I can do is stand still - if I stand still I can pretend everything is all right. That she isn’t dying right in front of me.

       All I’m doing is standing still. Helpless.

 

 


	3. Tobias' Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> again, mostly from the book. Be patient, the new stuff is coming.

** TOBIAS **

As I watch through her observation window, I remember when her body first hit the net, all I registered was a gray blur. I pulled her across it and her hand was small, but warm, and then she stood before me, short and thin and plain and in all ways unremarkable - except that she had jumped first. The Stiff had jumped first.

       Even I didn’t jump first.

       Her eyes were so stern, so insistent.

       Beautiful.

  


****

But that wasn’t the first time I ever saw her. I saw her in the hallways at school, and my mother’s false funeral, and walking the sidewalks in the Abnegation sector. I saw her, but I didn’t see her; no one saw her the way she truly was until she jumped.

Maybe a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last.

I hope it is not true.

There must be a place for someone like her in the world to live and be alive and let the flame burn burn burn.

 


	4. Caleb's Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb dares to talk to Four about the events outside the weapons lab

** TOBIAS **

I am sitting by Tris' bed, when Caleb finds me.

"Tobias?"

I shudder a little. He hesitates when he sees me, leaning close to Tris with her fingers held against my cheek. I turn away from his voice, willing him to disappear.

"Please," he says.

I don't want to look at him, to measure how much, or how little, he cares for her. And I don't want to think about the sacrifice she was willing to make for such a miserable coward, about how his life could never be worth trading for hers.

Still, I do look at him, wondering if I will see her in his face, hungry for more of her though she is right here next to me, somewhere between life and death.

Caleb's hair is unwashed and unkempt, his green eyes bloodshot, his mouth twitching into a frown.

He does not look like her.

"I don't mean to bother you," he says. "But I have something to tell you. Something…she told me to tell you, before…"

"Just get on with it," I say, before he tries to finish the sentence.

"She told me that if she didn't survive, I should tell you…." Caleb chokes, then pulls himself up straight, fighting off tears.       

"That she didn't want to leave you."

I should feel something, hearing that she was thinking of me when she went to the lab. Shouldn't I? I feel nothing. I feel farther away than ever.

"Yeah?" I say harshly. "Then why did she go? Why didn't she let you die?"

"You think I'm not asking myself that question?" Caleb says. "She loved me. Enough to hold me at gunpoint so she could die for me. I have no idea why, but that's the way it is."

He walks out without letting me respond, and it's probably better that way, because I can't think of anything to say that is equal to my anger. I blink away tears and sag in the chair, the weight of my body and my despair suddenly more than I can bear.

 

 


	5. Goodbye Uriah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another scene altered only slightly from the original

**TOBIAS**

It’s time to say goodbye to Uriah. Christina found me to let me know they were unplugging him.

We go to the observation window, my body aching with each step. This is too similar to Tris' room, it could just as easily be her we have to let go. Evelyn is there, Amar picked her up in my stead, a few days ago. She tries to touch my shoulder and I yank it away, not wanting to be comforted. I don’t deserve it.

Inside the room, Zeke and Hana stand on either side, holding his hands. I notice a doctor standing near the heart rate monitor, extending a clipboard not to Hana or Zeke but to David. He is bruised and sitting in his wheelchair. Hunched and dazed, like all the others who have lost their memories.

       “What is he doing here?” I feel like all my muscles and bones and nerves are on fire.

       “He’s still technically the leader of the Bureau, at least until they replace him,” Cara says from behind me. “Tobias, he doesn’t remember anything. The man you knew doesn’t exist anymore; he’s as good as dead. That man doesn’t remember shooting-“

       “Shut up!” I snap. David signs the clipboard and turns around, pushing himself through the door. It opens and I can’t stop myself—I lunge toward him, and only Evelyn’s wiry frame stops me from wrapping my hands around his throat. He gives me a strange look and pushes himself down the hallway as I press against my mother’s arm, which feels like a bar across my shoulders.

“Tobias,” Evelyn says. “Calm down.”

“Why didn’t someone lock him up?” I demand, my eyes too blurry to see.

       “Because he still works for the government,” Cara says. “Just because they’ve declared it an unfortunate accident doesn’t mean they’ve fired everyone. And the government isn’t going to lock him up just because he shot a rebel under duress.”

       “A rebel,” I repeat. “That’s all she is now?”

“Of course not,” Cara says softly. “She’s a hero, but as far as everyone is concerned now, it was an accident. There was so much confusion. It was chaos around here. No one knew who the good guys were.”

       

I’m about to respond, but Christina interrupts, “Guys, they’re doing it.”

 

In Uriah’s room, Zeke and Hana join their free hands over Uriah’s body. I see Hana’s lips moving, but I can’t tell what she’s saying - do the Dauntless have prayers for the dying? The Abnegation react to death with silence and service, not words. I find my anger ebbing away, and I’m lost in muffled grief again, this time not just for Tris, but for Uriah, whose smile is burned into my memory. My friend’s brother, and then my friend too, though not for long enough to let his humor work its way into me, not for long enough.

The doctor flips some switches, his clipboard clutched to his stomach, and the machines stop breathing for Uriah. Zeke’s shoulders shake, and Hana squeezes his hand tightly, until her knuckles go white.

Then she says something, and her hands spring open, and she steps back from Uriah’s body. Letting him go. I move away from the window, walking at first, and then running, pushing my way through the hallways. The pain is too great to be still. I run until I can’t run anymore, and then I walk. Losing Uriah is horrible, but I am also weighed down by guilt, because the worst part of it was imagining Tris in his place. My grief for Uriah is mixed with my fear for Tris’ fate, not allowing me to think of either one clearly.

Eventually I find my way back to her bedside. She hasn’t changed in any way I can perceive; I don’t know if the same is true of me.


	6. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tobias waits and wonders if Tris will return

** TOBIAS **

The rhythm of activity in the compound has changed. Those lost in the memory serum haze are gathered into groups and given the truth: that human nature is complex, that all our genes are different, but neither damaged nor pure. They are also given the lie: that their memories were erased because of a freak accident, and that they were on the verge of lobbying the government for equality for GDs.  

 

I have been with Tris for four days now. She lies here in the hospital, small and still. I sit with her as much of the time as they will allow me. The medical staff are amazed that her vital signs are stable, the swelling in her brain decreasing. But I know how strong she is, I have seen how tough she can be. They've warned me that she is unlikely to ever wake up, and the doctors cannot predict what she might be like if she does regain consciousness.There is probably brain damage. They do not believe I will get my Tris back.

 

No one has ever survived the death serum. And the gunshot wounds were serious, especially the one to her head. How long did she lie there, bleeding, until someone wandered into the weapons lab and found her? And David. They tried to kill each other, and almost succeeded. I hope I never have to see him again.

 

I will always regret leaving her here that night. I thought she would be safer in the compound than going into the city with me, where most people are armed and alliances shift as quickly as the wind. I understood her need to spend those last hours with her brother. I believed her when she said she would see me soon. She wasn’t lying, I tell myself. She meant it. I desperately want to believe it. Caleb said she didn’t want to leave me. How could she do it, then? Again.

 


	7. Argument

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Candor and Dauntless butting heads

** TOBIAS **

I catch my reflection in the mirror on the dormitory wall. I could use a shower, a shave and some serious rest. I've spent these days somewhere between sleeping and waking, not quite able to manage either extreme.

Christina walks in. She clears her throat, sitting down on the bed across from mine. "What did the doctors say today?" Her voice sounds like it’s traveling through water to reach my ears, and it takes me a few seconds to make sense of what she says.

Then I am sorry I understood, because I do not want to talk about what the doctors say.

"No change. They still aren’t sure when she'll wake up.”

She sighs. "I was afraid of that. I didn't want to say anything, so soon after Uriah... But... this is horrible for us, but have you thought about how hard it might be for Tris? I mean, we don't know how much pain she’s in, or if she'll ever wake up..."

I do not like her implication. "She isn't on life support, she's breathing on her own! It's totally different than with Uriah. She needs time to heal, that's all."

"I'm just saying, Tobias, what if she's only prolonging the inevitable, hanging on for our sakes? Suffering needlessly--"

Anger flares inside me, hot and dangerous. "She isn't suffering! She is resting, healing. She's going to come back!"

"All I’m saying is maybe you should talk to her, she might be able to hear you. Let her know it’s okay if she can't fight anymore, if she needs to let go. I mean, if you truly love her..."

 

The muffled feeling around my ears fades away, making even this quiet room sound loud. I shudder with the force of it.

"Shut up!" I yell. "Shut up! How dare you question my love for her!" I feel my voice breaking.

"All I'm saying," Christina says, her gaze level, unflinching, "is that we need to consider what's best for Tris. You are only thinking of what you want. You're being selfish."

 

I lunge toward her, pinning her shoulder to the wall, and lean close to her face. "How dare accuse me," I say. "I'll - "

"You'll what?" Christina shoves me back, hard. "Hurt me? You know, there's a word for big, strong men who attack women, and it's coward."

I remember my father's screams filling the house, and his hand around my mother's throat, slamming her into walls and doors. I remember watching from my doorway, my hand wrapped around the door frame. And I remember hearing quiet sobs through her bedroom door, how she locked it so I couldn't get in.

I step back and slump against the wall, letting my body collapse into it.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"I know," she answers.

We are still for a few seconds, and I can hear my breathing. Down the hall, I know Tris is still breathing. But for how much longer? I try to push the thought away, but now that it is there, it will not leave.

Christina and I look at each other. I remember hating her the first time I met her, because she was a Candor, because words just dribbled out of her mouth unchecked, careless. But over time she showed me who she really was, a forgiving friend, faithful to the truth, brave enough to take action. We have become friends, I can't help but see what Tris saw in her.

 

The tears come, and pain comes with them, hot and sharp in my chest. Christina comes toward me, puts her arms around my shoulders. Her embrace only makes the pain worse, because it reminds me of every time Tris's thin arms slipped around me, uncertain at first but then stronger, more confident, more sure of herself and of me. I fear that no embrace will ever feel the same again, because no one will ever be like her again. Crying feels so useless, so stupid, but it's all I can do. Christina holds me upright and doesn't say a word for a long time.

\+ + +

Hours later, I find myself back at Tris’ bedside. I take her hand, kiss her head, her cheek, her lips. I touch my forehead to hers, feeling the breath escaping her mouth, maybe for the last time. I cannot find it in myself to say goodbye.


	8. Waking Up

** TOBIAS **

I pace the corridors with no destination in mind. Tris’ condition remains unchanged from yesterday. I walk, trying to match my footsteps to my heartbeat, or to avoid the cracks between the tiles. When I pass the compound entrance I see a small group of people gathered by the stone sculpture, one of them in a wheelchair - Nita.

I walk past the useless security barrier and sit at a distance, next to one of the large planters, watching them. Reggie steps on the stone slab and opens a valve in the bottom of the water tank. The drops turn into a stream of water, and soon water gushes out of the tank, splattering all over the slab, soaking the bottom of Reggie's pants.

I hear voices approaching, Cara and Peter.

“This sculpture was a symbol of change,” she says to him. “Gradual change, but now they’re going to take it down.”

“Oh, really?” Peter sounds eager. “Why?”

“Um… I’ll explain later, if that’s okay,” Cara says. “Do you remember how to get back to the dormitory?”

“Yep.”

“Then… go back there for a while. Someone will be there to help you.”

 

Cara walks over to me, and I cringe in anticipation of her voice. But all she does is sit next to me on the ground, her hands folded in her lap, her back straight. Alert but relaxed, she watches the sculpture where Reggie stands under the gushing water.

“You don’t have to stay here,” I say.

“I don’t have anywhere to be,” she says. “And the quiet is nice.”

So we sit side by side, staring at the water, in silence.

  
  
  


** TRIS **

The first thing I know is sound. There is a buzzing in my head, and electronic noises - and voices. Where am I? It’s so dark. No, not dark, my eyes are closed. I struggle to lift my eyelids. The air smells of plastic and disinfectant. I hurt all over. What is wrong with me?

A cool hand rests on my arm, then my forehead. A woman’s voice says, “She may be coming around now. Her heartbeat and respiration are both faster. Beatrice? Can you hear me? Tris?”

Yes, Beatrice, that is my name.

“Can you open your eyes, honey? There, she’s trying. Renee, would you please find Dr. Moffat?” Then softer, “Beatrice, I’m Eliza, one of your nurses. Can you open your eyes and say hello?”

I manage to force my eyes open a crack. It is painfully bright. Her face slowly comes into focus, not too far from my own. Wide, green eyes and short, light brown hair. She smiles at me.

“Welcome back.”

 

“Wh- whe-” I cough and try again, “Where am I?”

“You are in a hospital, recovering from… an accident, I suppose you could say. The doctor who has been caring for you is on his way. He will want to check you over. I'll stay with you until he gets here.”

  
  
  


**TOBIAS**

I am still sitting there, alone now in the empty atrium, when I hear my name over the building intercom. “Tobias Eaton, please come to hospital room 247.” The hairs on my neck stand on end. For a moment that feels like an eternity I can’t breathe. What has happened to Tris? Is she alright? I don’t know whether to hope or fall to pieces.

 

I finally force my body into motion, walking then running to the hospital and to her.

 

Her doctor intercepts me when I reach the hallway. “Before you see her, there is something you need to know,” he says. “Tris is conscious, she can speak. She-”

I am bouncing on the balls of my feet, hardly able to contain my elation. “That’s wonderful! I’ve got to see her! Can I see her now?”

He goes on, “She has limited movement. She knows her name. However, she does not remember how she got here or anything that has happened before or since she arrived. She doesn't seem to recall anything about her life.”

 

The smile crawls off my face. My heartbeat pounds in my forehead. “Me?” I manage to croak. “Does she remember me?” They tried to prepare me for this but how could they, really?

“We aren't sure yet,” he replies. "She doesn’t recognize the names of her friends, including you, or her brother Caleb.  Maybe if she sees your face, hears your voice, it will trigger some memory. You are welcome to go in and try.”

I open her door faster than I mean to and it bangs against the wall. Tris jumps at the sound and makes a small, startled noise. She is sitting, propped up in the bed where she has been so still for too long. She is paler and thinner than I have ever seen her, with an IV tube in one arm, puffy areas around her eyes, and bandages on several wounds. She looks amazing.

But the look in her eyes is unfamiliar. I have seen Tris afraid before. I’ve seen her angry, frustrated, determined, happy, excited… this is something new. She looks lost. It isn’t just fear, she has shown me how she can handle fear. No, this is much worse. Her eyes dart from me to the door, and back again. I take a step forward and her shoulders tense, almost imperceptibly but I notice. I stop.

 

“Tris," I begin, "it’s me, Tobias.” I don’t know what else to say.

Her expression doesn’t change.

“I’m so relieved to see you awake. The doctors weren’t sure you would make it. I was afraid I had lost you. But you’re so strong, you fought so hard...” I realize I’m babbling and my voice trails off. She continues to stare at me.

"Uh huh," she manages. "Um, hello."

She doesn’t know who I am.

 

I reach for her hand. Her eyebrows go up, and I pull back. She frowns a little, thinking.

 

“You know me? We’re... friends?” she asks. "I... I don’t... remember you.”  

Her words feel like Dauntless throwing knives, piercing me, deflating me. What can I tell her? That I have loved her like a lost part of myself? That we have fought together, laughed and cried together, argued and made up, and shared things with each other that neither of us would ever imagine telling anyone else?

"Yes," I say gently, my hands going numb. "Actually we are a lot more than friends. I mean we were, I mean I hope we still are... or can be."

Tris’ cheeks flush pink. She looks healthier with some color, but I know she's probably wondering about ‘a lot more,’ and what that included. I remember how cautious she was at the beginning, about getting too close, going too fast.

We sit and look at each other for a long moment.

“I can tell you about it,” I say. “About your life, my life... us…”

“I dont think I'm ready for that," she says in a small voice. "I need some time... to think. This all feels new, everything is so confusing.”

“Of course,” I say. “Of course.”

She just looks at me then. I feel I've been dismissed.

I back up toward the door. “I’ll be nearby, I mean I’m living really close, so if you want to talk or... anything…” What else is there to say? I try to smile. It is a pathetic failure.

“Okay,” Tris says softly.

 

Her eyes are fixed on me until I’m out the door. Just out of her sight, I crouch down to the floor, my head in my hands, my breathing ragged. What will I do now? What is left for me?

 

 


	9. Needs

**TRIS**

It has been hours, I don’t know how many, since I awoke to find myself here. I cannot sit up or lie down on my own. The nurse on duty - her name tag says Becca - has to help me drink from the glass of water beside my bed. She checks a bandage on the back of my head. I didn't even know it was there.

"There's just a little patch where they had to shave around the wound," she says. "Your hair will grow to cover it quite soon."

Something tells me I have larger problems than a bit of absent hair.

I focus on the immediate. "Why does that machine beep constantly?" I ask her, "I don't think I can stand listening to it for another minute." I'd hurl it through the window if I could.

She pushes a button, silencing the thing. "It monitors your heart rate. We don't have to leave the volume on, though."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it," she smiles. "Is there anything else you need right now?" She is short and rounded, with a turned up nose and black hair drawn into a sensible ponytail.

 

What do I need? I am lost. I need everything. I struggle to make sense of the bits of conversation I overheard from medical people in my room. There was fighting in my city. Chicago. The name is foreign to me. I belonged to an insurgent group trying to find a new way of organizing our society in the aftermath. I did things that were very brave. This hospital is outside the city, in a place where scientists do research to benefit all of us. Where I was injured in some kind of accident. They are surprised I’m still alive.

 

Questions come tumbling out of me: "Why can't I move properly? Where is my family? How did I get here, where is the city I come from? What is going to happen to me?-" I would have kept going. But Becca holds up her hand and takes a deep breath.

"There was an accidental release of something called memory serum into this facility's ventilation system. It erases a person’s knowledge of their identity, the details of their lives. Most people here were affected. Immediately after the accident everyone was disoriented, not knowing what they should be doing, who was a friend or an enemy.”

She pauses then plunges on, "In the confusion you were shot. In the leg, and arm. And in the head. Your injuries are healing, but it will be some time before you regain control of your body. Your memory... well, we really can’t make predictions about that. You are different from the others."

"How? And why?" I demand, struggling to shift into a more comfortable position. Unsuccessfully.

 

She rolls me slightly and tucks pillows around my body to keep me there. "You remembered your name - which none of the others did - but nothing else. Everyone affected by the memory serum is working to relearn who they are and to reclaim their lives. Your difficulties are from the head injury. Your friends and your brother -"

I grasp for the name the doctor told me "...Caleb?"

"-Caleb, yes. He is your only family as far as I know. To be honest, he seems a little afraid of you.” Her eyebrows resemble question marks. “Christina, Cara, Zeke, they are your friends. You fought together. And Tobias, your boyfriend, he visited you earlier today, right? You know, he sat by your bed for hours every day while you were unconscious."

My head is spinning. I was a soldier, a sister, a girlfriend.

Tobias.

When he came into my room this morning I knew right away that he wasn’t one of the medical people. He was young and he wore torn jeans and a black sweatshirt. His hands were rough. He looked strong and had beautiful eyes. Handsome. In another time or place I would have been attracted to him. But here and now, I am drowning in unknown names and faces, with no knowledge of myself to anchor me.   

 

Tobias. His name won’t leave my mind. I wish I could remember.

 

Outside my window the sky is grey and the unfamiliar landscape is covered in a thin layer of snow. Like my heart. Brittle, still and hidden.

 

I do not feel like a girl who had a lot of attention from attractive young men. But his eyes were so sad when he left, I think he must care for me a lot.

 


	10. Alive, But...

**TOBIAS**

All I wanted was for Tris to wake up. I was sure she would and then nothing else would matter. She would heal and we would go forward in our lives, together. I almost wish she had remained unconscious. At least then I thought she was still mine. I believed she still loved me. Now my illusions have been exposed for what they were. She is only a shadow of her true self. She looked at me with Tris' eyes, but it wasn't Tris. Not really. Her uncertain gaze turned my heart into ashes, leaving me hollow inside. I don't think I could stand for her to look at me that way again, so I only venture to the window of her room when the nurses tell me she is sleeping.

 

My dull world brightened, snapped into focus when she came to Dauntless. I was drawn to her, and it was almost inconceivable that she could feel the same way. But she did. Even after she experienced my fear landscape and saw my most secret vulnerabilities, she didn't pity me. She looked at me with her eyes soft and open, she kissed me, and wanted to be with me.

 

Tris did more difficult things than anyone should ever have to. Yet she didn’t consider herself to be anything other than ordinary. She realized she wasn't considered pretty, but had no idea how beautiful she truly was. And now the real Tris is gone, leaving behind an empty shell of herself to serve as a constant reminder of what we had and what I've lost. I wish I could sit and talk with her, tell her our history, make her remember. But she doesn’t want me. She even seems a little afraid of me.

 

Is this worse than my great fear, losing her to death? I do not know. I'm desperate for relief, for protection from the pain that claws inside me like an animal.

 


	11. Confusion

**TRIS**

I haven't seen Tobias again in the two days that have passed, though the nurses say he has stopped by several times to make sure I'm okay. Christina has visited me, though, for short times since I tire easily. She is a bundle of energy, constantly in motion. She told me about the five factions, about us choosing Dauntless, our training and initiation. She showed me the black image of flames on her skin and said we got our tattoos together. Her dark eyes shimmered with emotion when she talked about the people we lost in the war. My parents. Tori. Will.

Through it all, she said, we have remained the closest of friends. She is glad I’m here, even if I don’t remember her. Now we are friends again, she declares. I agree.

 

I find the courage to ask her about Tobias. Christina is certain he loves me. She laughs when she tells me how ‘disgusting’ we used to be together. I must have loved him too. I guess that's one more item for the long list of things I have lost.

 

Tobias.

What am I going to do about him? I don't like having the power to hurt him, but I wish I could remember anything about us. What was it that first drew us together? What was our first kiss like? What things did we enjoy doing together? How much of me has he seen? Did we have plans for the future?

Maybe I should just ask him. But it would feel so fake. I can't be his girlfriend if I don't know him. I feel like all these memories must be in my mind, somewhere. But I can’t find them. It's so frustrating.

  
**\+ + +**

**  
**

Caleb sits in the chair near my bed, telling me about our childhood. His eyes are a different color than mine and his wavy hair is darker, but we have the same nose, the same chin. He takes it stoically when I admit I don’t remember him.

“Really, it’s okay, Beatrice,” he says sadly. “Maybe it’s better this way.”

I wait for him to explain how that could be, but he doesn’t.

 

“Would you tell me again about how our parents died?” I ask. It hurts so badly to feel that I’ve lost them twice, because I can’t even picture their faces or recall the sound of their voices.

He repeats the story he’s already told me: the attack by the mind-controlled Dauntless, the escape to a safe house with our dad and the other leaders while our mother went to Erudite headquarters to retrieve something of vital importance. Instead, she brought back… me. Only she didn’t quite make it, she was shot down less than a block from where they were hiding. Then our father’s brave stand in the Pire, firing a gun for the first time, enabling me to get to the control room. To somehow break Tobias out of the simulation and shut it down. Our desperate train ride to Amity where we were sheltered.

So many things for me to process. I am deep in thought and hardly notice when Caleb says he’ll see me later and ducks out of my room.

 

I read through the journal our mother kept, which Caleb brought to me. She had a difficult life before moving into the Chicago experiment. She loved my father. Caleb described a home filled with peace and order. But that world is no more. I will have to find my own way. I have nothing to return to.

 


	12. Escape?

**TOBIAS**

In this strange time, it’s movement, not stillness, that helps to keep me from feeling the pain, so I walk the compound halls instead of sleeping. I keep finding myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them. My hands shake as I stop by the control room to watch the city on the screens.  Johanna is arranging transportation for those who want to leave the city. They will come here to learn the truth.  I don’t know what will happen to those who remain in Chicago, and I’m not sure I care.

I walk the passageways that used to be designated for “support staff,” mostly GDs. They are empty at night.  Now everyone is being treated equally, and there is no more segregation based on genes. Tris would be proud, if she understood what we did. What she did.

Will she ever know her own bravery?

I find myself outside the door of the lab where Matthew worked on serums. I could probably hack into the electronic controls that open it. Why would I try?

I do, without much effort.  

I stop just inside the door. The metal tables and white tile floors are clean, shining dully in the dimly lit room. The air smells stale, as if no one has been here in a while. My heart is pounding, I can almost hear it in the silence. The blood rushes in my ears.  

 

Memories are powerful things, they make a person who he is. Without them, a person could be someone else. Like Tris, I think bitterly. I could be someone new, a man who does not carry all the pain of war, and grief, and lost love.  

One vial of memory serum could erase most of my life.  I would still know how to write, how to speak, how to put together a computer, because that data is stored in different parts of my brain. But I wouldn’t remember anything else. Tobias Eaton could become Tobias Johnson, son of Evelyn Johnson. Tobias Johnson may have lived a dull and empty life, but at least he could be a whole person, not this fragment of a person that I am, too damaged by pain to become anything useful.

The serum is here. In the refrigerator in the corner there are rows and rows of vials.

I think of what Christina said, before Tris woke up. _You are being selfish._ The worst thing an Abnegation-born person could be. Tris thought I was selfless and strong. It is not true. She has always been the strong one, always putting the people she cared for ahead of herself. Her selflessness has been the source of her greatest strength.  

My head throbs. My hand presses against my forehead, then rakes itself through my unwashed hair, ending on the bare skin at the back of my neck. I cannot see my tattoos, but I think of them now. I remember the resolution I felt when I got them. My promise to myself that I would not choose a single virtue, but embrace them all. I would strive to be brave, honest, selfless, truthful, and even kind.  Have I kept those promises?  My back slides down the wall until I am sitting on the floor.

The words Christina spoke before our fight come back to me. _We need to consider what’s best for Tris._ Tris believed in my strength, even when I didn’t. Erasing my memories would be a cowardly act, one she would hate. I am the only one now who carries the memory of us, of all we have been through, of all we have felt for each other. Erasing that would be like killing Tris. Removing all that remains of her true self from the world. Of course I cannot do that.

I. Can. Not.

I grind the heels of my hands into my eyes like I can push my tears back into my skull. My hands drop into my lap and I stare at them, the long fingers with callused knuckles, until they blur as the tears fall. Maybe just as skin on a hand grows tougher after pain in repetition, a person does too. But I don't want to become a callused man.

There are other kinds of people in this world. There is the kind like Tris, who, after suffering and betrayal, could still find enough love to lay down her life instead of her brother's. Or the kind like Cara, who could still forgive the person who shot her brother in the head. Or Christina, who lost friend after friend but still decided to stay open, to make new ones. Appearing in front of me is a choice, one that will take all the strength I have.

Can I do it?

In my heart, Tris says, "Be brave, Tobias."


	13. Returning

** TOBIAS **

I have made up my mind to leave the compound. It’s time to stop this meaningless existence and make my own way in the world. I don’t know if I will return to Chicago or possibly see what life in the fringe has to offer. But before I go, I owe it to Tris to say goodbye.

 

I am sorting my few belongings when a staffer from the hospital finds me. He says Tris has asked to see me. Leaving my things on my bed, dragging my feet, I head for her room. Now that I’ve decided to leave, I am not in a hurry to go to her because that means soon my time with her will be at an end. What could be going on in her head? It’s been torture staying away from her since the morning she woke up, but the fear that she will look at me that way again, like a stranger, is worse. I have been putting off the final visit, trying to figure out exactly what to say. But now the time is here. I knock on her door.

“Come in.” Tris is sitting up in a chair by the window, a green blanket covering her motionless legs, her pale hair just brushing her shoulders. There are snowflakes floating down outside.

I try to swallow the rough feeling in my throat. I fill my eyes with her, memorizing this moment for later, when I will not have her again.

“Tobias,” she says. “Come and sit.”

I take the other chair, facing hers but not too near. “Would you like to talk?” I ask.

She answers slowly. “For a while I thought I wanted to hear stories, to have you tell me about your history, about the time you and I spent together… Christina has told me about my life since our Choosing Day, when she met me. The war and my parents' deaths. She said I was almost killed, and you saved me. It’s strange… it feels like all that happened to someone else.” She glances down, then touches a fingertip to her collarbone. “But I have these tattoos and these scars…”

“Yes,” I tell her. “It all happened. You should never have had to go through those things. I would have stopped it all, if I had the power. You are the bravest, best person I’ve ever known.”

“I wish I remembered being that person,” she says. “I wish I remembered being your girlfriend.”

I desperately wish for those things, too. What is the right thing to say to her? I lean forward, reaching for her hand, and she doesn’t pull it away. Her fingers slip between mine just the way they used to. She looks at me, sideways, her eyes wide under her blond lashes.

“Even if you don’t remember being that Tris, you still are, somewhere inside.” I say. “I can see the strength in you. I know you will find yourself in time, and be someone special in this messed up world.”

She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Could you come sit next to me? Just for a little while?”

I release her hand to slide my chair over by hers, and she leans against my shoulder. After a minute I move my arm around her, and her head rests on my chest. I bow my head to touch my cheek lightly to her soft hair. I am falling to pieces inside with the knowledge that it is for the last time. We sit watching the snow in silence.

“I am going to leave this compound soon,” I say softly. “I need to find a job, make a life for myself. I’m no use to anyone, hanging around here.”

“No.” She says. Is she agreeing that my being here has no purpose? Should I go now?

 

Tris turns toward me, lifting her face to mine. She looks intently into my eyes, I feel like she is turning me inside out, searching for something inside of me. She puts a hand on my shoulder, slides it up my neck to the base of my skull, pulls me down to her. Kisses me. She kisses me, and I don’t know that to do. So I kiss her back. Her lips are soft and hesitant at first, then stronger. It feels the way our kisses used to. I don’t know what she is thinking, but this feels so right. And I want it to last forever.

When she finally pulls away, my hand remains, cradling her jaw, her ear, her chin.

“We rode the trains,” she says, her eyes fixed on mine. “They didn’t stop for us, but that was alright. I went into your fear landscape. You kissed me by the river, in the Pit. You were all I wanted when I went to my execution. You were called Four.”

  


** TRIS **

There was something about the look in Tobias’ eyes when he took my hand and told me I was strong. Something about the way our fingers fit together. Something about the scent of his skin when I rested my head on him.

I don’t know why I kissed him, exactly. I didn’t plan to, but when he said he would be leaving, I just couldn’t bear it. I could feel his hand shaking and I felt like my heart was crumbling. He smelled earthy and alive. Safe. Familiar. It was the first time anything has felt familiar since I woke to find myself here. I couldn’t let him go.

His lips were warm against mine.

The way they’ve always been.

How did I know that?

Then my brain started to whirl with images and voices: guns, crows, my mother, injections, blue shirts and black jackets. Tobias’ finger moving against the palm of my hand.

 


	14. Crawling Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six months after the previous chapter, Tris and Tobias are working to truly live again

**TOBIAS**    

“Hey, Reggie, I’m going to call it a day. I’m not finished with this one yet, but I’ll work on it some more tomorrow,” I say, placing my hands on my lower back and stretching as I get up from a computer in the former control room. I’ve been helping out with reprogramming them since they are no longer used for monitoring every move of the city leaders.  

“Sure thing, man. Hey, you and Tris want to join us later for some drinks? We’ll be in the old GD lounge," Reggie says, leaning his chair back on two legs.

“I’ll see how she is in the evening. Her physical therapy sometimes wears her out, but I know she would love to listen to the music and catch up with everyone.”

 

I glance at my watch. I have just over an hour before Tris will be ready for me to pick her up. I hurry to our little apartment in the old hotel to change into running clothes. For now, Tris and I have chosen to remain at the compound, where she can have the best medical care and the therapy she needs to recover. Her grit humbles me, as it always has, and her laughter fills up my soul.

 

My route takes me out the front gates and down the road to the east. The air smells of damp earth and green, growing plants. Springtime. There are GD rebels in the fringe who believe another war is the only way to get the change we want. Occasionally they find their way into the no man's land surrounding the compound. But they never bother me. I know how to look out for myself. I do not seek out confrontation, but anyone who starts something with me will regret it. I fall more on the side that wants to work for change without violence. I’ve had enough violence to last me a lifetime, and I bear it still. Tris does also. We are ready to move on.

 

The experiment in Chicago is over. Five months have passed since Johanna successfully negotiated with the government – David's superiors – to allow the former faction members to stay in the city, provided they are self-sufficient, submit to the government's authority, and allow outsiders to come in and join them, making Chicago just another metropolitan area, like Milwaukee. The security crew from the Bureau, once in charge in the experiment, is now in charge of keeping order within the city limits.

Chicago is the only city in the country governed by people who don't believe in genetic damage. A kind of paradise. Amar and Zeke are policemen in the city, and George trains the new police force - Dauntless jobs, I call them. Amar told me people from the fringe are beginning to trickle in and fill some of the empty spaces. Maybe they will find there a life more prosperous than the one they left.

My feet pound the asphalt like a steady drumbeat. Soon the pavement gives way to hard packed dirt roads. There are birds in the air, busily going about whatever business they have. I gaze across the rolling prairie landscape and the trees in the valleys. With the wind in my ears, I feel the release that using my pent up energy has always given me. Freedom.

 

All of our friends are finding new places in this larger world. Cara has found a job in the laboratories here at the compound, now a small segment of the Department of Agriculture, and Caleb is working for them while applying for the university in Washington, DC. Matthew is wrapping up his work here and plans to move to the city to pursue psychiatric research – something about memory. I don’t know yet where I will fit in, but it won’t involve guns, I am certain of that.

 

It’s random, but Peter enters my thoughts. After he emerged from the memory serum haze, some of the sharper, harsher aspects of his personality returned, though not all of them. I don’t hate him anymore, but that doesn’t mean I have to like him. I heard he’s in Minneapolis. But that’s all we know.

 

  
  


**TRIS**

I am in the middle of a session with Gina, my physical therapist, when Caleb strolls in. Our relationship has improved in the months since I took his place on the suicide mission in the weapons lab. I have truly forgiven him for his betrayal, and he seems grateful for the time we spend together.

 

His eyes are inquisitive and he wears a smile. "Hey, Beatrice, how's it going in here?" He is the only person who calls me by that name. I don’t mind.

I wipe the sweat from my face and sit down on the weight bench, glad for a short break.  

"I wanted to see if the new infusion is making a difference,” he adds.

"Actually, yes. I feel stronger and... just more coordinated, I guess."

Gina jumps in. "She's definitely making faster progress lately. Would you tell me again how the infusion works?"

"I'm not really an expert in biology - at least not yet," Caleb begins, "but as I understand it, they started by modifying the microcomputer injection solution to map specific receptors on Tris' nerve and muscle cells. The medication developed from that data includes targeted growth stimulators that speed up the healing of her motor nerve cells, as well as a customized blend of amino acids to rebuild her muscle tissue. It's totally fascinating!"

I laugh. "You find everything fascinating, Caleb."

He raises an eyebrow, then shrugs. "Maybe so. Well. I'll let you get back to work. See you later." And he's gone as quickly as he appeared.

 

After months of physical therapy that made my Dauntless training seem easy by comparison, I’m finally getting good at walking again. While my memories came flooding back, overwhelming me in the first days after I woke up, the physical recovery is taking much longer. But the new infusion has sped up the process. Three weeks ago, I could barely walk across the gym unaided. Today I have walked on the treadmill for half an hour, then lifted weights under Gina’s watchful eye to rebuild my core and leg strength. I still use the wheelchair for longer distances, but I plan to ditch the thing altogether very soon. Gina sometimes gets after me for overdoing, but when I feel myself improving, I can't help but try harder, to see what I can accomplish.

 

As I lean into a stretch on the floor mat, I think about Christina, working for a newly established office that assists people in the fringe. One of their services is relocating those who want to move into Chicago. When I'm fully recovered, I plan to join her there, helping people who come from beginnings like my mother’s find real opportunities. I still feel my parents’ absence keenly, even though I was the one who left them at the Choosing Ceremony. I want to honor their sacrifices by making a difference in this world. I’m looking forward to the day Tobias and I can leave this compound for good and make a real life for ourselves.  

 

 


	15. Love

**TOBIAS**

I am still breathing hard from my run as I step into the atrium.

When I arrive in the gym, Tris is finishing up with some balance exercises. She wears a sleeveless, black shirt and clinging black pants. Nothing like the Abnegation clothes we both dressed in as children. The look on her face is the same one I saw when she was a Dauntless initiate learning to shoot a gun, to take a punch, to face down her worst fears. She is completely focused on her goal, her jaw set as she meets every challenge. Beautiful.

“There are tulips in the front gardens,” I tell her. “Red ones, and yellow and pink.” She has been awaiting the first blossoms of spring. “How was it today? Ready to go?”

She is glowing with accomplishment, smiling now. “Yeah, I'm beat!” Her eyes snap. “I walked six minutes longer than last time and increased the weight four pounds on my leg press. Did you have a good run?”

“Mmm-hmm,” I nod and drop a kiss on her forehead, slipping an arm around her shoulders as we walk together to her wheelchair.

Pushing Tris through the compound to our apartment, I marvel for the thousandth time that she is with me. We've both had to be strong and fight for so long, I doubted if there were peaceful people somewhere within us, but it seems that there are. Living with her, without constant threats to our lives, allows us both time to heal from all we have endured - and to consider what we will do with our lives.

 

**\+ + +**

 

The door clicks shut behind us and Tris rises purposefully from her chair, turning to block me from going any farther. She stands so close to me that I can see every strand of blond hair framing her face.

“I missed you,” she says. When she wraps her arms around me and kisses my neck, I try to protest, but I don’t really want her to stop.

Her lips are warm as they find my ear, her breath soft. She pulls me against her, sliding her soft hands down my sides and up under my damp shirt. My skin tingles everywhere she touches.

“I want to see your body.” It is a softly spoken command. I obey, tugging my tee shirt over my head so she can move her slim fingers freely up my back, over my shoulders. Her kisses travel across my chest, ending just over my heart.

“Are you sure you're up to all this?” I ask her. She still tires easily and I can't seem to let go of this protective instinct.

Tris rolls her eyes. “No, Four, I will probably fall over and die in a minute.” She flashes a wicked grin as she playfully punches my chest, then ducks just out of reach.

This girl makes me glad to be alive. I drink in the sight of her. Her pale hair, her flushed cheeks, the edges of her tattoos barely showing on both shoulder blades. Her muscles, slack from disuse when she first left the hospital, are visible again through the stretchy pants she wears.           

“Yeah?” I ask, moving toward her. “Okay, then, let's see you finish what you've started.”

She giggles as I hoist her into my arms and carry her, squirming, to the bedroom.

 

**TRIS**

I love the way Tobias looks, his dark hair blown by the wind, his muscles sliding easily as he moves. I could watch him for a long time.

He bends to lay me on the bed and I catch his hand. I kiss each finger, then his palm, then pull him down on top of me. My lips still taste of salt from his neck. He smells like the outdoors, green grass, and something heady and male. He rolls his weight off of me and lays a hand on my abdomen. He pushes up my tank top, keeps pushing until I lift my arms and it slips off.  He leans down to sweep his lips along my ribs. His hair has grown longer, it tickles my skin. I am no longer nervous when he touches me or sees me without clothes. His every move and glance declares that I am exactly what he wants. A sweet warmth spreads through me as his kisses move upwards. His strong fingers slide along my hip, leaving a faint chill everywhere they have passed. When his lips find my nipple, I wrap a leg around him, pressing our bodies together until the space between us dissolves, feeling the firmness of him against me. His tongue traces tiny circles, softly at first then harder, more insistent. My breath comes in short gasps. There is a sudden heat between my thighs.

“You, Tobias Eaton, are wearing altogether too many clothes.” My voice sounds dark, husky. I reach for the elastic waistband of his running shorts and slip my hands beneath it. He sighs as I ease the shorts over his hips, down his taut thighs. Then he kicks them off and is free of their confinement.

“And you, Tris Prior, are the most amazing thing that ever happened to me.” His dark blue eyes hover inches from mine, pupils large, framed by long, dark lashes. My whole world is there, in those eyes.

I want more of him, all of him. It is a relief when he slides off my workout pants, leaving nothing between my body and his. My fingers find his most sensitive places, caressing, stroking. He groans and arches against me. I cannot tell where he ends and I begin, and it is a feeling I never want to end. Our breaths are intermingled. I can feel how ready he is, his fullness against my thigh, then pressing into me, deeper and harder. There is no pain now, as there was the first time, when he was so gentle and concerned. Our bodies fit together perfectly. We melt into one another, occupying the same space, forgetting the world and moving together as one in the rhythm of our lovemaking.

Later, propped on one elbow, I watch the shadows from the tree outside our window, dancing on Tobias’ face as he lies curled on his side, with my front close against his back. I take in his tanned skin, his brows straight and relaxed, his slender lips. The slanting sunbeams play over the faction symbols on his back as I trace them lazily with my fingertip. I still work at trying to be all of them: selfless, honest, peaceful, brave, and wise.

I was right about Tobias and I being good for each other. Each of us becomes a better person when we have each other. And we plan to have each other for all our lives.

There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater.

       But sometimes it doesn’t.

       Sometimes it is nothing more than facing what life brings, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life. That is the sort of bravery we will have now.

I let my head rest on the mattress and bury my face in Tobias' hair, breathing him in and finding his heartbeat under my hand.

 

 


	16. Epilogue

** FIVE YEARS LATER - TOBIAS **

Evelyn stands at the place where two worlds meet. A gravel road has replaced the faint tire tracks that used to trace the route in and out of the city. Now it is well traveled with the coming and going of people from the fringe moving in and out, or people from the former Bureau compound commuting back and forth. Her bag rests against her leg, where the edge of the gravel meets the dirt. She lifts a hand to greet me when I am close.

When she gets to the truck, she kisses my cheek, and smiles, and I let her. I feel a smile creep across my face, and I let it stay there.

“Welcome back,” I say.

The agreement, when I offered it to her five years ago, and when she made it again with Johanna shortly after, was that she would leave the city. Now, so much has changed in Chicago that I don't see the harm in her coming back, and neither does she. Though five years have passed, she looks younger, her face fuller and her smile wider. The time away has done her good.

“How are you?” she asks, then adds, “And Tris?”

“I'm well,” I say. “We all are. Emily is growing fast and just started smiling at us last week.”

“You gave her an Abnegation name," my mother says quietly. "I can’t wait to meet her.” Her eyes are softer than I’ve seen them since I was a small child.

 

I am a father now, a fact that still overwhelms me sometimes. When Tris and I found out she was pregnant, two years into our marriage, it was a powerful moment, one I’ll always hold in my heart. My immediate reaction was joy, followed by fear; how would I protect my child from all the unknown threats life brings? I knew I would be a very different kind of father than Marcus was. My daughter will never fear me. I will make certain she knows how very much she is loved and valued.  

Evelyn looks out at the fields. The crops that were once isolated to the area around the Amity headquarters have spread, and continue to spread through all the grassy spaces around the city. Sometimes I miss the desolate, empty land. But right now I don't mind driving through the rows and rows of corn or wheat. I see people among the plants, checking the soil with handheld devices designed by former Bureau scientists. They wear red and blue and green and purple. I've grown used to wearing blue jeans and various colored shirts instead of Dauntless black, we all have. Tris has embraced the palette of choices and I love how the bright colors light up her eyes.

“What's it like, living without factions?” Evelyn asks.

“It's very ordinary,” I say. “You'll love it.”

Ordinary doesn't begin to describe all the large and small ways in which my life is better now. For the first time, I don't feel like I'm being forced to fit someone else's mold for what I should be. No one is telling me I'm damaged or a disappointment. Without factions, I am free to associate with anyone I want, to be friends with people who chose different factions or who never had one. The democratic process of choosing our leaders has been a success so far, preventing people like Eric or Jeanine from derailing our efforts to build a productive society.

We enter the city and Evelyn notes all the changes that have taken place. Many formerly vacant buildings have been fixed up for use as homes or businesses. Streets are being repaired, trains stop now to pick up and let off passengers. A small creek flows in the old riverbed, a sign of progress made by the engineers working to restore the river.

Ahead of me I see the Hancock building bending into the sky, its base wider than its top. The black girders chase one another up to the roof, crossing, tightening, and expanding. The factions may be gone, but this part of the city has more Dauntless than any other, recognizable still by their pierced faces and tattooed skin, though no longer by the colors they wear. Some wander the sidewalks, but most are at work - everyone in Chicago is required to work if they are able.

 

Even though the zipline and graffiti are gone, the Hancock building still feels like a Dauntless place, because they are the ones who embraced it, for its height and, I suspect, for its loneliness. Now it is our home. The Dauntless liked to fill empty spaces with their noise. It was one of the things I liked about them. We were among the first settlers in the new Chicago, so we got to choose where we lived. Zeke and Shauna, Christina, Amar and George all opted to live high up in the building. Tris and I have an apartment on the fourth floor.

 

** TRIS **

I can tell Emily is finished nursing when she looks up at me with a toothless smile and begins to wriggle in my arms. I take her to the low chest of drawers that serves as her changing table and change her into a new diaper and her fuzzy yellow sleeper. Now that I am a mother I understand, finally, how much my parents must have loved me. I would give my life for her. Of course I would. But with the way things are going in the new Chicago, I don’t expect anyone will have to make that kind of sacrifice.

The younger version of me who chose Dauntless for freedom and excitement would hardly recognize the Tris who settles back now into my mother's rocking chair. Caleb miraculously salvaged it for me from our old house before the Abnegation sector was razed to make room for new, more comfortable homes. I had looked forward to a life full of loud laughter, freedom and excitement with the Dauntless, and I still have those things when Tobias and I get together with our friends. Soon after we returned to the city, I took one more ride on the zipline before it was taken down. Even Shauna was able to join us, wearing new leg braces that allow her to walk short distances. Tobias laughed when he kissed me before all of us riders went to the top of the building, then waited at the bottom of the zipline with Caleb - the pansycake crew, we called them - to catch us when we came, whooping and yelling, back to earth.

But the more routine aspects of our current life are welcome. I love to sit here in the evenings, talking with Tobias about the events of our days while he tinkers with his circuit boards and soldering iron and I work on the knitting that occupies a basket in the corner. Though I’m currently on a leave of absence from my job helping people from the fringe integrate into the city, I will return to it when Emily is a bit older. I believe my mother would be happy to see the balance that is possible now. She succeeded in her mission. We succeeded in completing it and changing our artificial society for the better. I’m only a little bit surprised to find myself content with this quieter, safer life, working to create a city where our daughter, and everyone, can grow up and thrive.

Sunlight winks in the windows of the building across the street. “Daddy will be home soon,” I say. I sweep my lips over the top of Emily's velvety head. Tobias and I have agreed that Evelyn can stay with us until she finds a place of her own. I feel only kindness toward his mother in spite of the harsh things she said and did in the past. She is not a threat to me anymore. I didn't fully realize it at the time, but she never truly was. We don't have a lot of family left, Tobias and I, there is no reason to keep her out of our lives. And her letters have revealed a gentler Evelyn than the one we used to know. Years of suffering transformed her into a hard, cold woman. But the layers of bitterness are falling away to allow the return of the caring mother Tobias remembers from when he was young.

I hear a key turning in the lock, and a moment later Tobias’ welcome presence fills the room.

 

**TOBIAS**

Tris is sitting in the living room with Emily resting on her shoulder. She is a beautiful child, with the barest fuzz of blond hair, delicate features like her mother’s and long fingers shaped like mine. She blinks her grey-blue eyes sleepily as Tris shifts her around to face forward, holding her in a sitting position.  

“Welcome, Evelyn,” she says, smiling. “We have the extra bedroom set up for you. You can stay with us as long as you like.” Then she adds, “This is Emily Lynn Eaton.”

I brush Tris’ lips with mine as I bend to scoop Emily from her lap. I smile down at my tiny daughter in my arms and am rewarded by a gummy grin. Sitting down on the couch, I beckon my mother to join me and meet her grandchild. Evelyn’s eyes mist over a bit as she slips a finger into Emily’s hand and is answered with five tiny fingers tightening around it.

**\+ + +**

 

After Tris takes Emily to our bedroom to lay her down for a nap, my mother and I sit amicably together.

“George says he needs some help training the police force,” Evelyn says. “You didn't offer?”

“No,” I say. “I'm done with guns.”

"That's right. You're using your words now," Evelyn says, wrinkling her nose. “I don't trust politicians, you know.”

“You'll trust me, because I'm your son. Anyway, I'm not a politician. Not yet. Just an assistant.”

Tris slips quietly back into the room and corrects me. "You mean you’re Johanna Reyes’ right hand man, and her chosen protegé."

I duck my head and allow myself a smile. “We’ll see how that turns out,” I say. I make room for Tris next to me, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as she tucks her feet up on the cushion.

Evelyn gives me a strange searching look, then leans and reaches into her bag sitting next to the couch.

When she turns back to me she is holding an object made of blue glass. It looks like falling water, suspended in time.

I remember when she gave it to me. I was young, but not too young to realize that it was a forbidden object in the Abnegation faction, a useless and therefore self-indulgent one. I asked her what purpose it served, and she told me, _It doesn't do anything obvious. But it might be able to do something in here._ Then she touched her hand to her heart. _Beautiful things sometimes do_.

For years it was a symbol of my quiet defiance, my small refusal to be an obedient Abnegation child, and a symbol of my mother's defiance too, even though I believed she was dead. I hid it under my bed, and the day I decided to leave Abnegation, I put it on my desk so my father could see it, see my strength, and hers.

“I took this from our old house, before I left. When we were apart, it reminded me of you,” she says, clutching the glass to her chest. “Reminded me of how brave you were, always have been.” She smiles a little. “I thought you might keep it here. I intended it for you, after all.”

I wouldn't trust my voice to remain steady if I spoke, so I just smile back, and nod.

 

** TRIS **

Lingering at the table after dinner with Tobias and Evelyn, I can see the lights of the city spreading out around us. We rarely have electrical interruptions lately, thanks to the power from many solar arrays installed on top of the tall buildings.

“Christina is going to come by tomorrow so we can work for a while,” I say. “Evelyn, did you know the government is ending all the city experiments?”

“I had heard a rumor,” she says.

“The officials who oversee our Resettlement Office think a lot of the changes we've made here would work in the other former experiments, too. They want Christina and me to develop a plan that we can present to the leaders of each city, along with examples of the successes we've had.”

The corners of Tobias’ mouth pull upwards. “You two are a great team. With your own experiences and what you’ve learned while assisting so many new settlers, you'll be a great resource for them.”

I feel my cheeks warming slightly behind my smile. After all he has done for this city, Tobias is always quick to give credit to anyone but himself.

Evelyn changes the subject. “Do you know where your father is?” she asks Tobias.

He shrugs. “Someone told me he left. Went with one of the groups that wants to settle the west.”

“There's nothing you wanted to say to him, before he left? Anything at all?”

“No.” He says. “I just wanted to leave him behind me, where he belongs.”

I squeeze his hand under the table. I know how hard it was for him to find this peace. Attacking his father in front of the Dauntless in the Merciless Mart didn't make Tobias feel better about the pain Marcus had caused him, and he realized confronting him or insulting him wouldn't either. There was only one option left, and it was letting go. And he had the strength to do it.

Seeing Tobias and his mother together, relaxed and talking like ordinary people, fills me with a profound gratitude. He is not the flawed product of damaged genes, or even of his difficult childhood. Through all the events since my Choosing Day, which have left me with scars both physical and otherwise, I have learned this: Life damages us, every one. We can't escape that damage.

But now I know a more important truth: We can be mended. We mend each other.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am beginning work on a new story, an alternate to my alternate, so to speak. It will be a replacement for Allegiant, rather than a different ending. Please don't expect too much; the grammar will be good, but only time will tell about the plot development. Thanks for reading!


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